"I could be wrong, you know:" John Hodgman notes that while his book That Is All is intensely concerned with "the coming global superpocalypse," it also contains much information about travel and sports and wine, and is "not depressing."

Theodore Hardeen (right) poses with brother Harry Houdini around 1901. Although Hardeen was the less-famous brother, he was also a magician and escape artist who continued to perform Houdini's routines after his death.